Anglican Mainstream

Ruth Gledhill and Philip Webster

The row over the Church of England’s attitude to homosexuality revives this week, posing another headache for the Archbishop of Canterbury as he tries to reduce the temperature over his remarks about Islamic law.

In a new book, God, Gays and the Church, the Bishop of Winchester, the Right Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, attacks the acceptance of “alternative, revisionist teaching” on the issue of homosexuality.

Bishop Scott-Joynt, referring to a debate on sexuality at the synod last year, claims that there was a “public advocating and vaunting of behaviour contrary to the teaching of the Church of England”. In that debate, priests spoke of the joy and fulfilment they derived from being in openly gay relationships, even though church discipline demands that gay clergy be celibate. The Bishop condemns the fact that personal experience appears to be given the same weight as Scripture, tradition and the Church in the debate over homosexuality.

But as he prepared for today’s opening of the synod, Dr Williams was defiant. Aides said that while taken aback by the strength of the response to his comments on Sharia, he has emerged more determined to raise his Church above the conventions of media spin and bring a new, high-minded form of intellectual debate to the public arena. “He is not cowed at all,” said a source close to the Archbishop. “The best way I can describe his mood is chirpy.”

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